Assessment & Accountability

It is time to ask what outcomes we are looking for from education. Why are our “outcomes” now only about how well a student does in courses? Wouldn’t it be better if students were evaluated on their evidence of learning, and wouldn’t that kind of evaluation have more to do with real life?

The Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) had its first world conference this last week in Boston, co-located with Campus Technology 2010. The group of learning and assessment experts is organized around its members' interest in ePortfolios.

How students are tested or evaluated determines how they are taught. But testing within many courses today remains, in essence, the same as always. Therefore, the limits of educational reform are determined to some extent by the current legacy structure of testing and evaluation.

Resumes are notoriously irregular, suspect, unreliable, and misleading. How to address this issue? And how can higher education help its students improve their employability by producing better resumes?

Marist College’s Director of Academic Technology and eLearning, a Campus Technology 2010 keynoter, talked with CT about potential disruptive changes ahead that may not only alter how we use technology for teaching and learning, but might turn higher education infrastructure on its ear.